


Fulfilled

by Cumberbatch Critter (ivelostmyspectacles)



Series: The Destined Duo Saga [19]
Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Developing Relationship, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 15:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5009662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivelostmyspectacles/pseuds/Cumberbatch%20Critter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You and your soulmates' countdown timers reflect how much time each other has left to live.<br/>You can give some of your years to your soulmate to extend their life, should the need arise.</p><p> </p><p>Watanuki's running out of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fulfilled

**Author's Note:**

> Actual prompt: You and your soulmate’s clocks have each other’s life spans on it but you can give your time to your soulmate if you want to so they can live longer. Again, because the universe is sadistic af. From [here](http://silentpeaches.tumblr.com/post/125291322610). I just couldn't resist writing it with DouWata. Because soulmate AU. Ahhhh!
> 
> I do not own _xxxHoLic_. Thanks for reading~

The thing was...

Doumeki didn't think in the terms of _soulmates_. He didn't care. It wasn't something that he worried about and, besides, the whole countdown etched onto your body... it counted down how long your soulmate had left to live. It didn't say anything like their _name_ to find them, and Doumeki wasn't social enough to get any further than saying 'hey' to someone in the hallway as he passed them.

So he didn't think about it, and he didn't think about how the countdown on his body said a little over eight months. It was maybe a little disconcerting, that, somewhere out there, someone only had eight months left to live, but there were probably lots of people that didn't even have that long. Doumeki couldn't do anything about it. It was what it was, and that was all.

He went on to almost get kicked in the face by Watanuki, invite him over to his temple for ghost stories, witness spirit parades and destroy an important "woman" and give away his eye, and for all that time, Doumeki didn't think about the countdown getting lower and lower.

Not until Watanuki fell out of the window, and the tattoo born onto his skin burned and Doumeki's breath hitched in his throat over the pounding of his heart and suddenly he had a whole different outlook on that soulmate thing.

Had he been with his soulmate the entire time? Well, no, of _course_ he had, stupid, _stupid_. He'd been falling in love with the moron, but he hadn't been thinking _soulmate_. He _didn't_ think _soulmate_.

Until now.

Doumeki took Watanuki to the shop, and left him with the woman and Kunogi, grabbing at the lapels of his own robe as he strode to the bathroom. He was covered in sweat and blood and anxiety prickling his skin; he jerked his clothes away from his skin and turned his back to the mirror, glancing over his shoulder to look.

The countdown against his left shoulderblade stood out in dark red, a contrast to the usual black, the numbers glaring at him in its reflection

**_00 00 17 24 56_ **

Years. Days. Hours, minutes, seconds.

Seventeen hours, twenty-four minutes, fifty-six, fifty-five, fifty-four seconds.

It _could_ be a coincidence.

Except there was no such thing.

Doumeki pulled the robe back on and hurried back to the bedroom, stopping in the open doorway. Yuuko straightened up, brushing her fingers against Watanuki's forehead, brushing the thin hair, sticky with blood, from the mismatched eyes. She looked at Doumeki, sad but knowing.

Doumeki's stomach tightened, but his voice was steady as he spoke. "Seventeen hours. Twenty-three minutes."

Yuuko looked at him evenly. "Yes."

Doumeki narrowed his eyes slightly. "You knew."

Now it was Yuuko's time for emotion; she smiled sadly at him, only for a moment. "Yes."

 _Why didn't you tell me?_ The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't say them out loud. Yuuko often didn't say things that she maybe should have. Doumeki breathed in slowly, and then lifted his chin. He couldn't be angry; clearly, they didn't have time. "What can you do?" he asked.

Yuuko looked at him evenly. "I can heal him, but I cannot give him time."

Doumeki swallowed. He felt sick, and didn't know what to say. Here he had been watching the time slip away, unaware. Helpness. Pathetic. But what was he supposed to do now? Him, and Kunogi, and Yuuko... Make a decision? Let him die? Heal him, only for him to go to sleep seventeen hours later and not wake up? No.

No, he couldn't make that decision. He couldn't face that, not like this.

"But you, Doumeki," Yuuko said thoughtfully. She rest her hand on Doumeki's shoulder, fingers splaying over the counter hidden beneath his robe. "You are a different story."

Doumeki looked up, trying to chase away the fragments of his panic. "What do you mean?"

"You are his soulmate. You can give him _your_ time."

His time. His lifetime. He could give up his years to Watanuki? "Do it," he said immediately.

Yuuko raised an eyebrow. "Don't you want to know how long you have?"

"No." Doumeki knew that, somewhere, on Watanuki's body, there was a countdown timer just like his and it showed how long Doumeki had left in this world. But he didn't care. He would give it all, for Watanuki.

Yuuko's hand trailed down his back. "How many years?"

But what was the answer to that? He _would_ give him all his time, all the time in the world, but then... he wouldn't be the one to have to deal with it. If Watanuki ever found out... even if he did have time guaranteed, it would break him. But Watanuki was so young, they both were. They both had their lives ahead of them, and Doumeki couldn't give Watanuki a _chance_ at any of that without significantly shortening his own.

In the end, he knew it didn't matter. Give him his all.

He was the person he couldn't live without, and he would make sure he wouldn't.

Doumeki looked back up at Yuuko, and opened his mouth to speak.

　

 

　

"We're gonna die young."

Doumeki yawned lazily, holding his hand over his mouth. Watanuki was tracing mindless circles on his back, and his fingers had begun to trace the ticking numbers on Doumeki's shoulder.

"... I wonder how we're gonna die."

Doumeki sighed, and rolled over, kicking the bunched up blankets away from his feet. "You're being morbid again, moron."

Watanuki huffed, although didn't yell as he used to. "But it's such a short time, we should be doing something."

"We _are_ ," Doumeki said.

"I just mean, something _constructive_."

Doumeki reached out to press his fingers against Watanuki's counter, right below his collarbone. It was jet black and the seconds were vanishing beneath his eyes. Strange, watching his life count down.

But it wasn't over yet. He still had years. He still had time.

"We _are_ ," Doumeki repeated, and ducked his head to kiss his soulmate's mark.

Watanuki groaned, and Doumeki felt the vibrations beneath his lips as he kissed at his skin. "You don't get it. We only have-"

"I know how long," Doumeki interrupted. "The most," he kissed the hollow of his throat, "constructive thing to do," and his shoulder, "is spend it with you." He kissed the soulmate mark again, and then tucked Watanuki against his chest.

Watanuki was red-faced as he spoke again. "... but we still need to do other things," he muttered, although it sounded like more of a pout than anything.

Doumeki didn't smile, but he was happy.

Even if Watanuki's counter told him that he only had thirty-four more years left to live his life, he was happy.

Because Watanuki had thirty-four years left, too. Doumeki obsessively checked his own mark to make sure that it still read what he had made a deal for; half of his lifespan to give Watanuki the chance to live, too.

It didn't mean a long life, for either of them. Doumeki would have much preferred that Watanuki live a long life in exchange for a short one himself, but he knew that Watanuki wouldn't be able to live with that. If he had made that sort of decision, Watanuki would have spent that long life trying to find a way to give the years back or, if he was too late, finding a way to _bring_ Doumeki back. And if he was focused on that, well... that wouldn't have been living. Not really.

So, half and half, it was.

Short but hopefully fulfilled, rather than long and completely unhappy.

Doumeki wasn't sure that he deserved the right to make that decision, in the end, but Yuuko had smiled at him and nodded, and Doumeki had remembered waking up after passing out, and Watanuki was tucked safely into bed, and the counter on Doumeki's back read more than seventeen hours, and nothing... _nothing_ could match up to that feeling.

"Love you."

"Don't say that stuff out loud, you jerk!" Watanuki snapped, burying his face into Doumeki's chest.

Doumeki smiled and kissed the top of his head.

There was no going back; he had made his decision then and he didn't regret it now. When he died, middle-aged or not, he would be content to have just spent the time with this four-eyed moron, because, to him, that was all that had really mattered in the first place.


End file.
